Astronomical Images : Zodiac signs

Johannes Sacrobosco

Astronomical Images

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Very little is known about Johannes Sacrobosco except that he was probably British, taught astronomy at Paris University, and died there in the second quarter of the thirteenth century. <i>Sphaera mundi</i>, his major work, was an extraordinarily popular astronomical textbook for several generations. Manuscripts of it circulated through all the main European centres of learning. It was first published in 1472 in Ferrara, and went through dozens of editions up to the mid-seventeenth century. These illustrations to chapter two of Sacrobosco's text, which discusses the circles of the Sphere, show (clockwise from top left) a crude diagram which might be intended to show the solar path, a pyramid shape, a shape of the zodiac sign and colures.</p>